Pinebox Adventures

Pinebox Adventures
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I have something Supernatural we can run Friday but if everyone is down with switching campaigns for a bit since we’ve been doing Pinebox/Supernatural for 8 months and Degrees of Horror is still not out. We could start up again in a bit once that book is out.

Last I heard, Matt can’t make the 26th. If I don’t hear from Stu/Jason on this, I’m going to offer that day to my other group tomorrow night. Let me know what day works for next session up North else you will have to plan around the other group.

Matt was talking about renewed interest in cyberpunk. There is a Savage Worlds RPG coming out called Interface Zero http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/821979583/interface-zero-20-full-metal-cyberpunk.

Since we seem to be cooking with this campaign now and are starting to add our own ‘flavor’ to it. I might start thinking of some over arcing ‘Plot Points’ of our own. Gently centered around our earliest adventure and John Renfeld’s illuminati angle.

I have the Horror Companion that gives some ideas here. I’ll try to have some idea of how some of this might tie together.

Buying a Supernatural novel which there are half dozen or so of those which should also contain copious material. I reviewed one of the 5 Supernatural adventures and it seemed like something that would fit with our campaign and be fun. I’ll eventually prep the other ones but the long and short is, I have a couple Pinebox and a couple Supernatural adventures prepped so I can create other stuff without risk of running out of material for a while. I am hopeful now that we can continue our “Supernatural/Pinebox” campaign until we want to take a break rather than having to due to material.

Broke down and bought the 5 Supernatural adventures and I’ll read through them and prep the ones I like and think we will like. The system they use is shockingly similar to Savage Worlds so far. I am optimistic at lease a couple of these will work for us. So I’ll prep a couple of them too to be ready on a session where I’m not ready to run something else or I feel our current scenario is not fun.

Ok, if you guys bear with me then, after this ‘Pond Devil’ adventure concludes (prolly next session), I will attempt to expand/create something and keep ‘Brainwashed’ handy. That way if I fail to get something ‘ready’ or what I have ‘ready’ starts sucking, we can instantly have something to run. Rather than use up the last couple canned scenarios, THEN try to create stuff.

I think my biggest concern is using up the last couple canned things then not being ready for a session and having it suck and you guys dread coming to the next session. If it sucks, we have a back up plan.

Fair enough?

On Cthulhu…I only heard positive things from alot of more mature rpgers (not munchkins) loving Cthulhu. At least I want to look into some for ideas that fit our campaign and if an adventure fits perfectly, use it. I love the suspense and investigation but less the “So you enter a room with a large tentacled creature. Place your dudes on the combat grid and roll initiave. Oh, and by the way…your scared because I told you so. Fine, roll for fear eventhough you’ll eventually shoot/hack/explode it enough that it dies.”

1) Brainwashed – short missing person mission — Assuming this is occulty/pineboxy
2) Bloodlines – long, fairly linear treasure hunt - Well, we could use money
3) The Beast Within – combat oriented frankenstein inspired adventure —not ideal for our 2 guys..ok, my one guy.
4) Ed’s Midnight Tales – three short encounters tied together with details to expand
5) Jerry’s Midnight Tales – quite a few starter scenarios that can built on but need fair bit of work I suppose - These last two sound expandable and not linear…but sounds like it might be more work for you to flesh out.

Other things I have considered/looked at:

1) Zero Day – David Baldacci thriller adapted with occult flavor -I have no idea what this means/who David is or anything…so I’ll say I’m hesitant on this one.
2) Supernatural episodes as seed - this could be interesting as Renfeld is an expand anti-occultist. I don’t know how much work it is for you
3) Delta Green – modernish Call of Cthulhu setting built in the 90s — I don’t really know what Cthulhu means but you seemed pretty hip on it.

How much of “Supernatural” have you guys watched? I’m only on about episode 8 of 120something and man some of these would be great Pinebox adventures. That is if you guys haven’t watched/memorized every episode.

BTW…that adventure based off a book I read…I’m fleshing it out to try after the “Pond Devil” is done. I’d like to try it. If it really starts sucking the first session, we can transition to another canned adventure real quick (Brainwashed). You guys will have to just be honest with me and tell me if at any point you want to bail on it. If that is okay.

Still have to finish reviewing that 100+ page adventure (Bloodlines) before I run it because I think it is too linear for us to enjoy and need to know enough to run it non-linear. That only really leaves one more fully canned adventure that I thought we might like (Brainwashed).

There is a “Chickens in the Mist” one that sounded too cheesy to me. Ed and Jerry have “Midnight Tales” books I’ve skimmed through that have adventure seeds but not full adventures. I am stealing some stuff from one of those for the ‘Zero Day’ adventure I’m pulling from a book.

Long story short, there are only a couple canned adventures left for Pinebox until ‘Degrees of Horror’ comes out. So we have a few options after that…probably April-ish.

1) Use the adventure seeds and see how that goes.
2) Use some modern Cthulhu stuff…Realms of Cthulhu and/or Delta Green but adapted slightly to our world.
3) Use the Supernatural adventures book (5 adventures) as basis for some new stuff
4) Take a modern horror break and start Part 2 of Kingmakers campaign
5) Try a session or two of something completely different and decide what to do next

I’m enjoying the different stuff we are doing and it is not secret I’m lukewarm about Pathfinder. But if you guys really want to get back to it, the general story is fine and I’ll resist the urge to make you guys change systems on that.

One interesting thing though…Village of Homlet plus the long awaited Temple of Elemental Evil follow on modules from Gary Gygax are now available in PDF for on DriveThru RPG. It’s all 1e stuff that could easily work with 3.5e/SW or even Hackmaster.

At my last count I had 142 points, I’m not sure what Jason has but I’m sure my numbers are accurate :) I promoted myself to Arch-Bishop or the Anglican Illuminati, CIA credentials and Israeli intelligence training with blackbelt in Krav Maga, oh and Bugati Veryon (http://www.bugatti.com/en/veyron-16.4.html)

FYI…bought all but one (5) the current Pinebox adventures (Chickens in the Mist looked stupid) and I’ve reviewed them. I’ve picked the next one and started prepping it. It has a lot of material so it should be plenty but I have good understanding of the others and can get another one ready pretty quickly.

Their plot point campaign has no ETA. I also bought one of their collections of short stories and taking a couple of them and turning into adventures.

So plenty of material for a couple months even if we burn through extra over break.